The two were in the Senator's study. Lana had led the retreat to that apartment; its wainscoted walls and heavy door shut out in some measure the racket of hammers and saws. She walked to the window and pulled aside the curtain and looked out into the night. Between Corson Hill and Capitol Hill, in the broad bowl of a valley, most of the structures of the city of Marion were nested. The State House loomed darkly against the radiance of the winter sky. She was still wondering what that blood-stained intruder had meant when he declaimed about the job waiting on Capitol Hill, and she found disquieting suggestiveness in the gloom which wrapped the distant State House. Even the calm in the neighborhood of the Corson mansion troubled her; the scene of the drama, whatever it was all about, had been shifted; the talk of men had been of prospective happenings at the State House, and that talk was ominous. Her father was there. She was fighting an impulse to hasten to the Capitol and she assured herself that the impulse was wholly concerned with her father. "I'll admit that the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, just as that poet has said they are," Mrs. Stanton went on, one topic engrossing her. "But I'm assuming that there's an end to 'em, just as there is to the much-talked-of long lane. In poems there's a lot of nonsense about marrying one's own first love--and I suppose the thing is done, sometimes. Yes, I'm quite sure of it, because it's written up so often in the divorce cases. If I had married any one of the first five fellows I was engaged to, probably my own case would have been on record in the newspapers before this. Lana dear, why don't you come here and sit down and confide in a friend and assure her that you're safe and sane from now on?" Miss Corson, as if suddenly made aware that somebody in the room was talking, snapped herself 'bout face. "Doris, what are you saying to me?" "I'm giving you a little soothing dissertation on love--the right kind of love--the sensible kind--" "How do you dare to annoy me with such silliness in a time like this?" "Why, because this is just the right moment for you to tell me that you are forever done with the silly kind of love. Mushy boy-and-girl love is wholly made up of illusions. This Morrison man isn't leaving you any illusions in regard to himself, is he?" Miss Corson came away from the window with a rush; her cheeks were danger-flags. "You seem to be absolutely determined to drive me to say something dreadful to you, Doris! I've been trying so hard to remember that you're my guest." "Your friend, you mean!"